Byzantine Soldier vs Seljuk

By the end of the first week of November 1942, the German Sixth Army held about 90 per cent of Stalingrad. Yet the Soviets stubbornly held on to the remaining parts of the city, and German casualties started to reach catastrophic levels. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Hitler decided to send additional German pioneer battalions to act as an urban warfare spearhead. These combat engineers were skilled in all aspects of city fighting, especially in the use of demolitions and small arms to overcome defended positions and in the destruction of armoured vehicles. Facing them were hardened Soviet troops who had perfected the use of urban camouflage, concealed and interlocking firing positions, close quarters battle, and sniper support.

In July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident sparked a bloody conflict between Chinese and Japanese forces that would rage across China and beyond for more than eight years.

The US Airborne force fielded some of the toughest, best-trained and most resourceful troops of World War II – all necessary qualities in a force that was lightly armed and which would in most operational circumstances be surrounded from the moment it landed on the battlefield. The German Wehrmacht grew to rely on a series of defensive measures to combat the airborne threat, including fortifications, localized reserves, and special training to help intercept and disrupt airborne troops both in the air and on the ground. Despite such methods it was cool-headed command and control that would prove to be the real key to blunting the Airborne's edge.

Canadian and Waffen-SS troops of 12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend faced one another in a series of bloody battles following the D-Day landings of June 1944. The Canadian units fought in a number of distinguished regiments, while the Hitlerjugend Division were drawn from the ranks of the Hitler Youth organizations. Veteran officers and NCOs were joined by inexperienced teenagers, and clashed with the Canadians repeatedly, notably at Authie, Bretteville and Hill 168. The struggle quickly took on an especially bitter nature, fuelled by the massacre of Canadian prisoners by Hitlerjugend personnel.

At the turn of the 20th century, the region of Manchuria sat atop a potentially catastrophic political fault line; the ancient strength of China was crumbling, leaving opportunities for both Russia and Japan to claw out new territories from the edges of that dying empire. Russian pride would contend with Japanese ambition in a conflict that ushered in the age of massed armies fighting on battlefields that were being redefined by the new tools of war such as newer, larger artillery pieces, and the use of machine guns in pitched battles. The vast, but over-stretched Russian Army was expected to steamroller its far smaller opponent, but the aggressiveness and zeal of the more modern Japanese military confounded expectations.

Operation Torch, launched on 8 November 1942, landed Anglo-American forces in Vichy-controlled Morocco and Algeria to create a second front against the Axis forces in North Africa, catching Rommel's German and Italian forces in the claws of a giant pincer.